FEATURES

31 May 2018

Police Workplan Seminar 2018 - Policing with New Technologies

Police Workplan Seminar 2018 - Policing with New Technologies

By: Irwan Shah

The recently held Police Workplan Seminar 2018 brought together hundreds of police officers from across the island to learn about the advancements in policing technologies and the breakthroughs within the Singapore Police Force (SPF) this year. The seminar was graced by Mr K Shanmugam, Minister for Home Affairs and Minister for Law. Against a challenging manpower and heightened security landscape as well as rising public expectations to keep Singapore safe and secure, these new technologies will enable our frontline officers to improve their productivity and capabilities, and focus on higher-value work.

“Harnessing technology has become essential for us to do our job,” said Mr K Shanmugam during his speech as he elaborated more about the current technologies to be introduced by the SPF.

From smartphones to robots, here are some of the exciting new capabilities unveiled by the SPF this year!

Policing Smartly – The Police Smartphone

The Police Smartphone is SPF’s latest operational device which will be distributed to 8,000 frontline police officers within the next 12 months. It will allow officers to receive real-time information on the ground 24/7, which enables them to respond faster and more effectively to any incidents, even when they are off-duty. The Police Smartphone is envisaged to go beyond incident management and include SPF applications that will (i) aid in decision-making across all frontline functions; (ii) fulfil administrative and training functions; and (iii) assist in better engagement of the public. More applications are already in development which will allow police officers to work, train and learn on the go.

The Police Smartphones are designed with two distinct zones - a) “Personal Space” for public mobile apps and Internet access and b) Encrypted “Secure Space” for police mobile apps. The “Secure Space” only communicates through an encrypted channel with a secure IT infrastructure that is separate from the Singapore Government Intranet. Sensitive content is only processed on this “Secure Space” and user access is controlled using biometric two-factor authentication. While public mobile apps and Internet access is permitted in the “Personal Space”, it is continuously monitored to detect malicious apps, mobile apps with suspicious behaviours, device tampering, and other threats. Pre-emptive measures are in place to lock and erase the “Secure Space” if the smartphone is misplaced or hacked.

Uncovering the Truth – The 3D Handheld Scanner

The 3D Handheld Scanner is a compact, tablet-form device which is capable of taking real-time scans of various types of confined crime scenes and hard-to-reach areas. Integrated with 3D scanner cameras and 3D scanning software, it allows Crime Scene Specialists to view, adjust and take additional scans without using other external devices or software. It is also capable of taking measurements of objects, such as a knife, through its scans without physically measuring the real object. The device will also be used to complement the existing 3D Terrestrial Laser Scanner to document crime scenes. Trials will begin at frontline units in May 2018.

SPF’s RoboCops

Robotics is an area that the SPF has been exploring to reduce and automate tasks that do not require human interventions or to mitigate risks to officers. The SPF has also been collaborating with industry partners and research institutes to develop and conduct trials of robotic platforms to enhance Police operations and complement our frontline officers.

S5 Pan-Tilt-Zoom (PTZ) Patrol Robot

The S5 PTZ Patrol Robot will play a key role in enhancing event security. Currently, police officers are deployed to conduct patrols at large-scale national events. Such operations are usually manpower intensive. With the S5 robot, patrols can be conducted by the robot autonomously without the need of human intervention, cutting down manpower in the process. The robot’s PTZ camera is capable of giving a 360-degree view of the environment, allowing real-time live-feed to be provided back to the command post. During its patrol, the cameras can be used to detect suspicious activities or articles within its environment. At Chingay 2018, the SPF conducted the first trial of the S5 robot to complement its event security operations.

Multi-Purpose All Terrain Autonomous Robot (M.A.T.A.R) 2.0

The M.A.T.A.R 2.0 was built through a joint collaboration between the SPF, Ministry of Home Affairs’ Chief Science and Technology Office (OCSTO) and A*STAR’s Institute for Infocomm Research (I2R). The robot can conduct indoor and outdoor autonomous navigation and avoid obstacles by itself. It has a 360-degree video capture which is capable of human detection and tracking. It even has a facial recognition feature and can detect sound anomalies. More features such as video and audio analytics, intruder detection, multi-robot collaboration and UAV collaboration are being developed to enhance the robot’s capabilities. MATAR 2.0 was deployed for in-house trial at the Home Team Academy in September 2017 and operational trials are planned to be set in the coming months.

Future Robot – Display (FURo-D)

The FuRo-D is a robot which is specially designed to assist the SPF in its community engagement efforts during community roadshows and crime prevention events. Unlike the other two robots, its role is to interact with the public and share useful information through its touch screen panel while adopting a friendly persona. Members of the public can play several educational games on the panel and even take a selfie from the FuRo-D. A photograph printer can be remotely connected to the robot so that they can print out their selfies as mementos. Last year, the FuRo-D was deployed for a limited trial during several community engagement events in Sengkang and Punggol. Several other features such as voice recognition and automated generation report will be added into the FuRo-D in the near future.